Ethics Committee Finds ‘Substantial Evidence’ That Gaetz Committed ‘Statutory Rape’

The House Ethics Committee released a long-awaited report Monday, stating that it had found “substantial evidence” that former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) violated House rules and laws “prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, acceptance of impermissible gifts, the provision of special favors and privileges, and obstruction of Congress.”

The report, which was released despite objections from some members of the committee, found that “from 2017 to 2020, Representative Gaetz made tens of thousands of dollars in payments to women that the Committee determined were likely in connection with sexual activity and/or drug use.” 

These, the report said, included a 17-year old girl — a felony violation of statutory rape laws in Florida, whether or not Gaetz knew her age at the time, the report notes. 

The report paints a lurid picture of a high-rolling lifestyle where Gaetz, often in conjunction with Joel Greenberg — a former county tax collector in Florida who was sentenced to 11 years in prison for crimes including underage sex trafficking in 2022 — would spend heavily on drugs and “girls,” some of whom Greenberg allegedly found through SeekingArrangement.com, a sugar baby website.  

Some of the episodes in the report underscore the vulnerability of the women involved, even those older than the 17 year old, who had “just completed her junior year of high school” when Gaetz allegedly statutorily raped her, per the report. 

One 21-year-old woman told the committee that she had been in contact with Gaetz about helping her with her tuition payments. Per the report, he told her to come to a hotel room so he could give her a check. When she arrived, Greenberg and a 20-year-old woman were there. 

“The 21-year-old woman told the Committee there was an ‘expectation’ of a ‘sexual encounter,’” the report said. “The four of them had sex and afterwards Representative Gaetz gave her a $750 check made out to cash with ‘tuition reimbursement’ in the memo line, which she deposited the next day to help pay her tuition. The 21-year-old woman told the Committee she believed that the encounter ‘could potentially be a form of coercion because I really needed the money.’”

This kind of pressure is a through line in the report. 

“The women also discussed instances where Representative Gaetz would try to convince them to have sex with him or Mr. Greenberg: ‘[H]e would make me feel bad about not having sex with him or [] Joel Greenberg’ and that he would say, ‘Why don’t you want to have sex with me’ or ‘[Mr. Greenberg] looks very sad over there . . . . Make him happy.’”

One woman added: “I think about it all the time . . . . I still see him when I turn on the tv and there’s nothing anyone can do. It’s frustrating to know I lived a reality that he denies.”

The committee found that Gaetz’s then-girlfriend would facilitate some of the paid sex with women, once texting some of them that Gaetz and Greenberg were low on cash and that “M]att was like[,] if it can be more of a customer appreciation week.” 

The report is also peppered with accounts of the drug use involved in these episodes and the impunity with which Gaetz purchased drugs, noting that he “appears to have set up a pseudonymous e-mail account from his House office in the Capitol complex for the purpose of purchasing marijuana.”

The committee notes that both Gaetz and the Biden Justice Department were consistently uncooperative. The DOJ had pursued an investigation into Gaetz and his associates, but did not bring charges against Gaetz.

“To date, DOJ has provided no meaningful evidence or information to the Committee or cited any lawful basis for its responses,” the committee report said. 

Committee Chair Michael Guest (R-MI), writing on behalf of the dissenting members, objected to the report’s release due to Gaetz no longer being a current member of Congress. Gaetz abruptly stepped down in November, shortly before the report was expected to be released. At the time, he was President-elect Donald Trump’s (R) nominee for attorney general, though he soon bowed out of the confirmation process, seemingly realizing that he had dim chances of getting the votes he needed in the Senate.

Gaetz filed a last-minute lawsuit in federal court on Monday, seeking to block the public release of the report. 

“Giving funds to someone you are dating – that they didn’t ask for – and that isn’t ‘charged’ for sex is now prostitution?!?” Gaetz tweeted after news of the report’s contents began to emerge. “There is a reason they did this to me in a Christmas Eve-Eve report and not in a courtroom of any kind where I could present evidence and challenge witnesses.”